Is God Experienced?

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It means that there’s nothing that God doesn’t know, as is confirmed in Genesis: God knows good and evil, evil being a twisting or perversion of His created good.
 
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fhansen said:
It means that there’s nothing that God doesn’t know, as is confirmed in Genesis: God knows good and evil, evil being a twisting or perversion of His created good.
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The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

(Genesis 3:4-5)

So, I was thinking about this, earlier. If Adam and Eve knowing evil is sinful and God knowing evil is not, then is Adam and Eve’s knowing is different from God’s? I think it must be - at least it is if their knowing is experience and God’s knowing is not. In other words, seeing evil isn’t the same as experiencing it in oneself.

But what do you think?
 
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Lyrics to the song, for those who’ve never experienced them:

[Verse 1]

If you can just get your mind together

Then come on across to me

We’ll hold hands, and then we’ll watch the sunrise

From the bottom of the sea

[Chorus]

But first, are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Well, I have

[Verse 2]

I know, I know you probably scream and cry

That your little world won’t let you go

But who in your measly little world

Are you trying to prove that

You’re made out of gold and, eh, can’t be sold

[Chorus]

So uh, are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Well, I have

[Verse 3]

Let me prove to you

Trumpets and violins I can hear in distance
I think they’re calling our names
Maybe now you can’t hear them, but you will (haha)
If you just take hold of my hand

[Chorus]

Oh, but are you experienced?

Have you ever been experienced?

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful
 
The first evil they experienced was the very mistrust in and disobedience of God that they acted out. This constituted a major paradigm shift in their world, placing them outside the natural order of things, which is why they also experienced shame and guilt (unnecessary experiences for the innocent), as soon as their eyes were opened, even as they weren’t yet ready to give up their bid for freedom from their Creator at that point. They had a whole brave new world to explore first, a detour on their journey back to Him presumably.

The knowledge of evil wasn’t bad in itself, while the act of achieving it was. The knowledge, itself, is simply wholly unnecessary for an innocent being. It’s value lies only in teaching them, the hard way, what not to do. This is one reason we’re here in this world now, to know, to experience, good and evil so that we make the right choice in the end between the two, learning for ourselves why disobedience of God is wrong because of what all it entails and leads to, the choice Adam & Eve failed to make at the beginning.

Once this breach, this rift with God, is made, however, only He can get us back home, returned to wholeness and innocence; only He can save us.
 
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Beautiful, but not real wisdom yet I think. Which might be why Jimi ended up as he did.
 
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fhansen said:
Beautiful, but not real wisdom. Which might be why Jimi ended up as he did.
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I know! Right? I mean, there’s a kind of a deception in having a chemical substance mess with one’s perception. Experience holding hands at the bottom of the sea is a kind of deception, but then again the song ends with the lyric:

Not necessarily stoned, but beautiful.

So, he might have been speaking of a dream, a day dream or a psychotic episode. Or perhaps holding hands at the bottom is the sea was a metaphor.
 
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fhansen said:
The first evil they experienced was the very mistrust in and disobedience of God that they acted out. This constituted a major paradigm shift in their world, placing them outside the natural order of things, which is why they also experienced shame and guilt (unnecessary experiences for the innocent), as soon as their eyes were opened, even as they weren’t yet ready to give up their bid for freedom from their Creator at that point. They had a whole brave new world to explore first, a detour on their journey back to Him presumably.

The knowledge of evil wasn’t bad in itself, while the act of achieving it was. The knowledge, itself, is simply wholly unnecessary for an innocent being. It’s value lies only in teaching them, the hard way, what not to do. This is one reason we’re here in this world now, to know, to experience, good and evil so that we make the right choice in the end between the two, learning for ourselves why disobedience of God is wrong because of what all it entails and leads to, the choice Adam & Eve failed to make at the beginning.

Once this breach, this rift with God, is made, however, only He can get us back home, returned to wholeness and innocence; only He can save us.
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So, are you saying God knows these experiences?
• mistrust
• disobedience
• shame
• guilt

Let me put the question a more precise way…

To what degree or extent does he know them? That is, does he know them in observing them in others, only? Or does he know them personally, as his own personal experiences?
 
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it’s knowledge she experienced.

God has all knowledge but cannot experience it because nothing is new to God, as there’s nothing new under the sun
 
Jimi was killed by Monika Dannemann who wanted to sleep with him and wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she offered him downers and he took too many, passed out, suffocated on his own vomit, then she called the police HOURS later
 
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He knows about them, all that they entail, because He’s omniscient. He doesn’t experience, by participation, in anything evil itself.
 
Hmm, good company issue then I guess. It’s generally about our choices in the end.
 
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FloridaCatholic said:
it’s knowledge she experienced.

God has all knowledge but cannot experience it because nothing is new to God, as there’s nothing new under the sun
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So, let me try to understand:
  1. Experience is knowledge one experiences
  2. God only has knowledge he cannot experience
Therefore, God does not have all knowledge, since he has no knowledge of that which he doesn’t experience

To put it another way:

As I am ignorant of my wife’s pain in childbirth, so God is ignorant of my experience of sinning.
 
He had many bad people around him, including a manager who dosed him with LSD while he was playing a live concert
 
FloridaCatholic said:
Jimi was killed by Monika Dannemann who wanted to sleep with him and wouldn’t take no for an answer, so she offered him downers and he took too many, passed out, suffocated on his own vomit, then she called the police HOURS later
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I suppose, then he experienced what you or I have not: Dying from an overdose.
 
You may be ignorant of your wife’s pain in childbirth because you aren’t God, God would be aware of how your wife felt though
 
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fhansen said:
He knows about them, all that they entail, because He’s omniscient. He doesn’t experience, by participation, in anything evil itself.
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I think, then we’ve experienced the real purpose of the topic at hand, which is to answer the question:

What is knowledge?

It seems you are defining knowledge this way:

Knowledge is to know about something and what it entails. It is not experiencing something by way of participation.

Does this sound good to you? (You May change this definition now, or later, if you like.)
 
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FloridaCatholic said:
You may be ignorant of your wife’s pain in childbirth because you aren’t God, God would be aware of how your wife felt though
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Yeah, no. I mean, I’m not so sure this is the case. For God would know the specific and excruciating pain of death by crucifixion, since Christ was God incarnate and experienced this firsthand. Yet, I don’t see how he could know the pain of childbirth, since he never had female anatomy. He would know that she felt pain but not how that pain felt, I think. At least, I know of no scripture that contradicts this.
 
Knowledge can be had without experience, while experience can confirm knowledge, at least for a created, non-omniscient being. And God can actually infuse knowledge in fact.
 
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